The random ramblings of Peach Pellen

2015 was quite a year; 2016 will have more posts, IOT and a lot of content for newbies, in both software and hardware.

The main reason for my lack of posts is the mindset I’ve had of trying to write, most of the time, semi-professionally; the kind of style I use when I’m writing the Platino newsletter or the like. It’s a lot easier for me to write using a conversational tone; so that’s the plan for this year.

In the spirit of casual, random posts – here’s a picture of Navi, who I was recently (OK, like 6 months ago) looking for a childproof gate for-

… such a little cutie. Anyway, the gate! During my search, I found this;

Looks fine, right? Normal enough… then you look closer -

… and if you’re anything like me you end up thoroughly disturbed and amused by the amount of eye shadow the baby appears to be wearing.

That said, this isn’t an entirely random post, so moving on to what happened in 2015 and what’s coming in 2016, in no particular order, personal and professional-I got my license; and my Porsche…

I’d wanted to make sure I got it before I turned 26, which I did, kind of – I got the car then the license

I attended a number of events with Intel

I went to IDF (The Intel Developer Forum) for the first time, which was fantastic – seeing The Fray live was really cool, I met a number of new people who shared my passion for technology, and I got to talk about the Intel Innovator Program, which I’m a proud member of.

I also attended the Innovator Summit in Santa Clara at the end of October, which is where I finally decided to start playing with IoT; I’d been interested for a long time but it all felt so incredibly foreign to me – I think that’s true for a lot of software developers. (Actually, I know it is, I ran a survey! Thanks again to everyone who took part in that.)

Intel Innovator Summit

As a result, I’m going to be starting tutorials and the like on iot.peachpellen – to help other complete newbies learn how to do some cool stuff with hardware. I figure as someone who was, and still is, mostly clueless, writing as I learn will let any of you who have an interest as well start from the point of no prior knowledge assumed; something so few tutorials do.

Also, it’s an excuse to solder things, and I’m learning that I quite enjoy that, when my hair doesn’t get singed, which it frequently does. (Thankfully, I’ve got plenty.)

See that? Totally works. Didn’t fry anything.

I’m also contributing to Intel’s AndroidHub – there’s a lot of cool content by some great people there, but that link points to an infographic I threw together as I think it will be of some interest to the majority of you.

I’m so amazed by how far Platino has come – seriously. I wish I had more free time just to use it as a developer. The performance has gotten phenomenal, the scaling and touch events greatly improved, the physics engine ripped out and replaced to be much easier to use. (I tried to like Chipmunk, I did, but I just don’t. I hate it. PhysicsJS is powerful, intuitive and downright better, IMHO – and now it’s in Platino.)

What else?

Wrapping this up for now, I also ate a fantastic steak called “the Tomahawk” despite the waiter insisting “Madam, that is for two people”, upon completion he informed me I was the first woman to have eaten the entire thing, at which point a few fellow diners looked around, seemingly surprised I am not, in fact, a fat person. I fell in love with the Hyatt Regency in Coral Gables, (I have seriously pondered the expense of living there; if you follow me on Twitter you already know why,) a crazy woman declared I was a child while hoping to stab me, (if you know me you know why that’s nothing to fret about,) I discovered Nightcore, much to the horror of many Facebook friends, then discovered why I like it – we all hear various tones differently; a lot of remixes just hit those for me, I fractured my neck, (it was the tiniest fracture ever, I’m fine now!) went to Nashville, Miami, Atlanta and Boston for the first time, started playing “Puzzle and Dragons”, through the process of working on a pitch realized that due to my 80+ hour work weeks I’ve technically got about 20 years experience in an industry that’s really only 8-9 years old at this point, got my eyebrow re-pierced, got a new tattoo (inner wrist; the tattoo I have for Dex/Grant is 8 years old, but had dates added last year) which will likely be my last, and, more importantly than anything else, I’ve found a renewed certainty in my belief that we can indeed choose our families as much as we can our friends; and that in doing so, we can cultivate an environment free of negativity, and rich in love, support, creativity, inspiration (… and potatoes) – and that leads to great things.

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this rambling, random post – it was written at 3am and due to a back injury I’m on some pretty strong pain killers. Future posts will be a little more concise; I promise.

Peach Pellen

PS – If you’re going to be at GDC and would like to meet up, hit me up, I’ll be around, showing Platino off in Intel’s area on the bridges upstairs, taking naps in random locations, smoking in dark corners, checking out Foley’s piano bar (amazing) and generally being spectacular Hope to see some of you there.